


You Made Your Heart, Now Live in It

by DarkPoisonousLove



Series: Dance of Devotion [5]
Category: Winx Club
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, F/M, Finger Sucking, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Guilt, Insecurity, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Sex, Self-Loathing, not explicit, self-deprecation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:42:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25404814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkPoisonousLove/pseuds/DarkPoisonousLove
Summary: Griffin took over for the dead woman she looked up to as her mentor and her life has been stuck in the chair of headmistress ever since. It's just too uncomfortable for her heart and pokes to life all the insecurities she's let inside it as they follow her into Valtor's bed. Can he pull her out and into his arms before she's lost the battle?
Relationships: Griffin/Valtor | Baltor (Winx Club)
Series: Dance of Devotion [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1800337
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	You Made Your Heart, Now Live in It

**Author's Note:**

> This whole thing was partially an excuse to include that flashback in the beginning since I had the idea for it but no place to put it. After some wandering around in the mist of creativity, though, it has developed into a significant stop on Griffin's road to overcoming her issues and finding her way to Valtor so I hope you'll like it!

_"She can't be the headmistress. She barely has a few years of teaching experience," Mrs Rockmore's voice was bouncing off the walls of the teachers' room and aiming right for Griffin's head. If the sound waves were any sharper, they would decapitate her and no one would notice even if she was the center of the conversation._

_They were acting as if the universe had finally granted their shared wish and she couldn't speak. It was worse than back when she'd been a student sent to the principal's office–and hadn't that been a typical occurrence?–considering she'd never been silent back then. But she had no words to spare currently and could only feel them dying in her chest instead._

_"She's deputy headmistress," Ediltrude crossed swords with their old Biology teacher who'd always liked them both before the battle for the coveted position of headmaster had started. Before they'd all completely disregarded any pretense that they'd cared about the woman who had held it for years. "Headmistress Annora trusted her enough to give her that position," Ediltrude said, the rotting name filling the room with grave silence, not of mourning, but of displeasure with the distasteful reminder. "And Griffin is the face of the school anyway. She has been for years now," Ediltrude used the cleared stage to present her case not caring if she blurred the line between being on the offense and being offensive and Griffin couldn't afford to care either. No matter how repulsed she was by everyone in the room and the hideous betrayal they were essentially committing. Headmistress Annora had left them a legacy of teamwork that they'd failed to uphold in mere weeks._

_"That's just proof things are working perfectly as they are," Mrs Selberg didn't miss the chance to boast with her ability to find easy solutions that Griffin couldn't deny even if she wanted to, and the only thing she wanted was for that farce to be over. They were pissing all over a great woman's memory with their pursuit of something to stroke their egos and she couldn't stand it which left her anchored in her chair and feeling like a dead weight to herself._

_She hadn't expected her ex Math teacher to back her up for anything. After all, the woman had always thought that she was just a tad bit too talented–and the words had dripped such sourness that Griffin had sworn she'd need to eat packets of raw sugar for days on end to get rid of the acrid taste since no sweets seemed sweet enough to accomplish that daunting task–with her proficiency in both language and algebra. Add great understanding of geometry on top of that and it was getting too much for a balanced equation._

_Griffin would admit that it added up for her old teachers to be unwilling to work under her if it actually did. But they were already working under her considering her position as deputy headmistress and Headmistress Annora had always been thrilled at the prospect of students she'd taught herself being the future of the school. She'd always seen the potential in those social status had already left without a future and Griffin had wished the rest of the teachers' collective shared that view as well. But when did she ever get what she wanted?_

_"She can do even more if you let her," Zarathustra startled her with her unexpected interference. Of course, she knew she could count on the twins to have her back–how intelligent could she be if she hadn't learned that in over a decade?–but Zarathustra wasn't usually one to speak for her. Then again, she spoke for herself but she had no way or intention of talking on this tragic day. "She's done so much for the school already. The students' attendance, grades, general behavior, mental health and even family situations have improved thanks to Griffin's efforts." Her name filled the room like a ghost threatening to suffocate them all in the reality that she could be the successor to the throne that they needed. "She's made so many useful connections and raised so much funds for this school," Zarathustra said, her voice shaking so hard it shattered Griffin's mind prison to have her catch her friend's hand under the table both for support and to show her gratefulness for having the conversation finally steered into the right direction. It was all about the school and the girls' future and none of their personal disagreements mattered._

_"If I looked like her, I could have done that as well," Mr Bitters gave into his signature knack for getting fired up to the point of losing all ability to actually operate with words and starting to spew them out like vomit instead._

_All heads turned towards her in the silence gnawing at her insides–though, that could just be the effect of his statement–now that he'd openly thrown down the gauntlet in their struggle for the position of headmaster. Only Ediltrude and Zarathustra were staring at him, the murderous energy coming off of them like electricity crashing into her and leaving her shocked when it didn't hurt. She had the same charge inside her and it was short-circuiting her brain with the impulses of death she could read into it. There was too much of that inside her already. She couldn't harbor more or she'd die herself._

_She stood up tall–taller than all the rest, like she'd always been–to remind herself she was still with the living. She had her students. She had to think of them._

_"We've never really gotten along," she looked at him and only him since he was the center of the resentment she was facing and she could count on the twins to keep her flanks safe, "but after all those arguments I've won, I didn't think you'd ever dismiss my intelligence. Yet, here you are, discarding not only that, but also all of my efforts to take care of the young girls we all watch waste away when no one cares about them," Griffin said, her quiet voice reaching every corner of the room now that it was so empty of Headmistress Annora's presence and it seemed to hit him as well as regret visibly forced his shoulders to droop. Good. Then they still had something in common, a flimsy thread to keep them together as a team until they burst at the seams from the tension within. "I don't think my place is here," Griffin continued, pained to feel the confusion of the twins' stares staining her frame with their failure to understand. "I have devoted all of my time and energy to the young girls we teach here and the only place I should be is with them."_

_She pushed her chair back, its screeching against the floor the most empathy she'd gotten during that whole assembly, and made her way out of the teachers' room. It was more of a circus at that point and the ugliness of it was too much for her heart next to her own that was already in it. And she was alone against all of that._

_Tears were the only option left sans suffocation._

* * *

"What's wrong?" Valtor asked, severing the screaming and sobbing in her head.

She'd heard him emerge from the bathroom–she'd killed not just the smile on his face at the sight of her, but also his jokes and innuendos filling the car and her hollow chest and he hadn't tried to kiss her much to her relief as she would've poisoned him with her past like she'd done so many times with any future she could have had until she was stuck in whatever hideous place her mind would build out of her memories–but even his naked body hadn't brought her back into the light of his bedroom. She had to hold herself in the sheets that were far too soft to survive her death grip to banish the darkness from her gaze before she let it touch him.

He'd put on underwear as if the flimsy fabric could protect him from the pain burning inside her she would inflict on him if she wasn't careful. "You've been awfully quiet," he said, sending her flinching backwards to put more distance between them and keep the disease in her mind from spreading.

"It's nothing," she said, swallowing the lump of fear the size of the entire universe that was stuck in her throat. She couldn't let it get out and get between them when he was the only person she could see herself with. "It's just work problems," she said, doing her best not to wince at how loudly the omitted truth was banging on the walls of the words she'd trapped it in as it threw itself at them until it was bleeding but her prison held outside of her mind. "It's nothing that I haven't faced before."

That could be considered both an understatement and a lie with how dedicatedly the feelings of that day she'd been robbed of any belief in herself haunted her throughout the years. They always came at their scheduled month during the spring to celebrate the anniversary of her reopening wound and sometimes even struck out of nowhere just to see her bleed and feed on her suffering as they became brighter and louder in her head the longer they lived in there while she faded under the duress of carrying them with her everywhere. She was sick and she wasn't sure how much she had left with the parasites draining her system of the life she could have if she could deal with them. But the only one that ever took damage from those encounters was her and she was doomed.

"It's something," Valtor said, no fight in his words and his concern a reflection of hers she'd caught in his mirror as she'd stripped down to her cami top and underwear only to turn more restless at how much greater the risk of touching him with the wrong feeling became since she couldn't control what poured from her heart and her skin. Yet, he wasn't scared of coming closer in his quest to help her instead of himself. "Tell me," Valtor coaxed gently as he sat down on the bed and the shift in the mattress tipped her off balance until she was just about to fall in his arms and crush him with her weight.

"What do you see in me?" she asked, the desperate cry for help slipping out of her mouth before she could stop her burden from spilling out and over him.

"What?" Valtor froze, prompting her to warm him up but she would only burn him if she touched him with the fever her organism was running as a response to the infection spreading from her head to the rest of her and sparing nothing.

"Tell me why... you find me hot," Griffin said, trying not to lie to herself at least if she was going to lie to him. If she believed anyone could find her beautiful with all that rot her being was a home to, she would have demanded his words, his feelings, on that without a second thought spared on his wishes. She was protecting herself, not him. She knew he desired her body at least and that would have to be enough for her if she herself preferred to poke her inner world with a stick and from afar.

"Hot?" Valtor repeated, setting off doubts in her head whether she'd melted his brain with the combustion she'd incinerated the previous topic with not caring what he still had invested in it.

"Sexy," she said, the word sliding from her tongue like slime but there was nothing else left inside her. She wasn't beautiful anymore and she couldn't remember the last time she'd thought she was. But he saw something in her and she wanted to know what that was so that just maybe, by some warped logic or broken law of nature, she could see the same as him. "I'm curious what your... favorite things about me are," she pushed herself to finish what she'd started. And he didn't even need to like her to have a favorite thing about her, though she tried to suspend her disbelief from running away from her with his heart all wrapped in its cobweb to suffocate anything that could come out to caress her.

Valtor cupped her cheek and stroked his thumb over it giving her the perfect opportunity to escape his insistent gaze. She could close her eyes in content she would never have to fake–like she hadn't faked anything with him even if she was prone to deflecting–but she wanted to let him find what he was seeking in her, wanted to hope it was possible, and his tenderness kept her heart from skipping beats in its attempts to escape better than his ardency that only gave it reason to race. It left her steady in his bed instead of in what felt like a boiling sea looking to swallow her shipwreck.

"Your hair is definitely a favorite," Valtor murmured softly as he let his fingers slip into the strands, the very action making her breath hitch, although it could as well be his words that did that to her.

She would've hoped he'd say that if she hadn't forbidden herself assumptions. They always came hand in hand with expectations that were, in turn, traitorous little bastards that stabbed her in the chest every time she let them close enough for that. She'd spilled too much blood already to allow even the possibility of drowning Valtor in it.

"I like that it's so... impractical," Valtor said, pushing all the breath out of her as if to punish her for holding it in anticipation when she knew better than that.

She needed the span of a few inhales and exhales for her brain to reset her reality around the disappointment waiting to be released the moment he pulled his fingers away. "Excuse me?"

"I think we can both agree that the length of your hair," he wrapped a strand around his index finger, "and the color are hard to maintain, not to mention unconventional." Well, that was true enough. She'd had every kind of hair-related issue one could imagine and even some that had to be impossible. Like tripping over your own hair. As if the tangles or the expenses on dyeing it weren't enough. "But you don't let any of that stop you when you know what you want. I like the confidence." Valtor smirked at her as he tugged on that strand he still had wrapped around his finger like she wanted his tongue wrapped around hers. She was intimately acquainted with what it could do and it would be the perfect follow up after he'd caressed all the right parts of her with his words sending a pleasant tingle through her scalp and down her heartstrings.

"And how do you link that back to my question?" she had a struggle getting the current one out through the moan she was trying to hold back but he was pulling every brick for her dam out of her hands as he kept playing with her hair.

"Confidence is the road via which sexiness arrives, of course," Valtor shed some light on the matter now that he hadn't allowed her to trap herself behind a wall and was building a bridge over her flowing insecurities to reach her. It was a daunting task and she had no idea what had him motivated to take it on, only that she was grateful.

She'd hung by the nonexistent thread of hope in her life's tapestry–she might have blamed her mother for not weaving it in if she herself hadn't been the one who'd pulled it out what felt like a lifetime ago–that he would but she could have never imagined he would do it so fast. Maybe when it came to expectations, it depended on whose hands you left them in. Valtor hadn't dropped them in a heap of shards that would cut up her brain in pieces and had arranged them in a stained glass window the color of his eyes instead.

"Confidence and strained moans," Valtor surged forward to steal a quick kiss and the sound that accompanied it from her lips.

"Foul play," Griffin gasped out, her breathing pattern alarmingly scattered after how little he'd done to get it that way. She was as affected as she'd been during her very first kiss and the embarrassment would have set her cheeks on fire if his eyes weren't keeping her floating in their soothing coolness. Like a compress for her wounded sense of self that had leaked out everything about herself she'd found admirable.

"You never set any rules and I didn't agree to any either," Valtor pointed out, his smugness only drawing her closer to let him build more on the abandoned playground of her heart she'd given him free access to after keeping it locked up for years. It didn't meet safety regulations with the forceful damage that'd been done to it and even she was scared of treading it but he'd found his way through it and she had to trust him to keep himself safe. She just held on to his arm to pull him out the moment she felt the ground he was standing on crumbling. Shutting out all warmth touching her heart would be better than bearing the responsibility for hurting him. "And besides, I am making my way to my next point," Valtor said, his fingers running through her tresses and she couldn't wait to find out what part of her they'd caress next.

"And what might that be?" she asked, her breathy voice pointing to neediness rather than being seductive when she had nothing to offer, nothing to play up and lure him with that she was aware of and he wasn't. She was counting on his honesty to be her mirror and let her see what she hadn't been able to find in herself after she'd been hollowed out by other people's eyes reflecting only a void back at her as if there was nothing else she had, no virtues and grace amidst all her ugliness.

Valtor's thumb brushed against her lips to have her part them and pave the path for his words inside her. "I could hardly imagine anything more amazing than your mouth," he said and she hoped he could feel her return the sentiment with her gaze as she trailed it over his lips to commit the sight of his admission as well as the sound of it to memory and let her brain have a better, tangible grasp on it. That way maybe it wouldn't slip through her fingers the moment self-doubt pulled her apart at the seams and she let go of the lifeline keeping her from drowning to pick up her pieces. "It holds your attentiveness like a temple made for sacred things."

She'd need his elaboration to unwrap her from the paralysis clinging to her like a second skin–his skillful and efficient process of leaving her naked for him was the only thing sheltering her heart from the panic trying to attack it–to give her a chance to jump over the chasm on the other side of which he was waiting for her with an image of her that she would like to have in her head instead of wishing to grab a kitchen knife and carve it out of there. She was still holding on to him, though, and he hadn't minded even for a moment so maybe he would help her get even closer. Even if her grip on him had been supposed to keep him safe, not pull her out of the clutches of her own demons. It was always her that needed help, always her that couldn't fight her own battles.

"You always know what to say to make me feel good and then you just make it better and better," Valtor said and it was just her trust in him–and her wishful thinking–that defended him from the blooming accusations of projecting on the tip of her tongue.

It was what she did. Every piece of advice and reassurance she gave was something she was missing, something she'd wished someone would have taken the time to tell her. She only functioned in a society thanks to her empathy, thanks to relating everyone else's problems to her own when that was all her focus encompassed. She could only help her girls because she'd been them–still was–and she could only comfort Valtor because of her own experiences of loneliness. It was always about her just like it had been after Headmistress Annora's death. She hadn't mourned the woman, she'd mourned what she'd meant to her and nothing more.

"Bantering with you always leaves me with a smile on my face since losing doesn't mean anything and winning is so satisfactory with the knowledge you made me work for it," Valtor pulled her out of her self-pity and back to what he had to say, back to the efforts he was making to fulfill her wishes.

Somehow, she hadn't managed to tear apart his incentive to please her–probably because she didn't know what it was and where to find it–with her biting remarks and the venom she was spilling out unlike a snake that had control of its murder weapon. She was out of order and her mind proved it as the only response to his statement it was coming up with was the memories of his groans of pleasure that he gave her for sinking her teeth into him. So maybe he was just a masochist.

"Kissing you is like traveling through space to a place where problems can't reach me when you're keeping me safe between your lips." Valtor's words reached in her chest as if it were his hands enveloping her heart in their shared desire to protect it from the self-loathing poisoning her being.

He smiled as she pressed her lips against his thumb to give him the gratitude she didn't want to interrupt him with. She wanted to hear everything but she needed to give him what was his as well and he'd claimed all the happy ripples her heart made as it splashed around in the affection of his gaze like a baby duckling finding water for the first time. It didn't even matter if it would turn into a swan as long as she could keep its content alive for long enough to soothe the boiling blood flowing through her veins like magma killing everything in its way. She didn't need her soul hardening into a diamond when it was the soft graphite of it Valtor would use to draw a masterpiece of her emotions like she knew he could.

"And when you take me in your mouth... well, I am sure you've had a taste of everything your eagerness does to me," Valtor said, the electric charge he was using to reanimate her running through her to leave her stunned as if a lightning had fried her mind.

She only broke free from her stupor to close her lips around the two fingers he was sliding over her tongue as if there was a reset button at the back of it. There may as well have been since his tactic worked, her brain rebooting at the sweet proof of his words he made sure she would swallow like the saltiness of his cum. It was his pleasure preceding hers and leading her to satisfaction and she'd only wanted more of that as she used her tongue to tell him.

Valtor seemed to find that enough as he pulled his fingers out and she could pull them back by the wrist she was still holding but she restrained herself even though he'd let her do what she wanted. He was the only lover she'd ever put before herself and she liked it that way, liked the idea of him being special to her. It could hurt her in the long run but she wanted him to be more to her, have more of her than she'd given before. And that meant both her eagerness and her restraint, each coming in the right moment.

"Let me guess what's next. My breasts?" Griffin asked as she let his fingers trail over her cleavage. The wetness of her own mouth they left over her skin made her eyelids heavy like clouds full of rain and she had to struggle to keep her eyes open. She could never regret being affected by his touch, however, as everything else faded away to let her feel him.

"As appealing as that would be," Valtor freed himself from her grip and she couldn't blame him when she would've crushed his bones otherwise, "there's something else I wanted to talk about." He closed his fingers around hers as if she was made from flimsy porcelain just waiting to crack in his grasp.

"There is?" Griffin asked, her voice trembling as if trying its mightiest to hold itself out of the fissures opening in her body for her to stuff her self-admonishment in.

She'd asked him to talk. She could at least give him the freedom to choose his own words instead of force feeding them to him with her unclean hands that he wasn't afraid of holding anyway. As if he had nothing to spare on the possibility of her staining him with mud from the negativity she was trying to dig her way out of only to get buried deeper into it. Not even awareness of its existence, and she shouldn't let him share her self-made grave.

Valtor nodded before lacing their fingers. "It's your touch," he caught her gaze. And her breath. "We both know the arousing effect it has on me but there is just something about your hands on my back working out the tension from my muscles and your fingers in my hair soothing my nerves better than even your words do." Valtor took the time to press a kiss to every fingertip on the hand he was holding–there was nothing for her to do, suspended as she was in her astonishment that was weaving its cobweb around her lungs like a spider to never let her breathe again–before he continued. "I couldn't place it at first but the more I watched you, the clearer it became."

She had to run. She had to even though she was out of breath. Every cell in her body was screaming its horror of scrutiny as if it would be chopped in bits with an ax and if she couldn't get away from herself, she might be able to stop the deafening noise if she shot out the door... and never came back. And she couldn't do that. Not until she had to, until he saw in her what everyone else did – she wasn't worth his time and efforts. She wasn't worth another look when all she could offer was waste of potential and disappointment.

"Your touch is made of tenderness."

What?

"You're always careful and put a lot of thought in how you handle something," Valtor said and his words couldn't be true. But he'd never lie to her. He hadn't tried to lie his way out of talking about his past even once and that was the touchiest subject she'd ever poked at. So maybe he was telling the truth about her touch. "You hold books as if they carry fragile souls inside them that could be damaged just by creasing a page," Valtor made her wince, her mind tearing itself apart to find a rebuttal for his point in a page she'd ripped through only to find thousands she hadn't left a trace on. Not even with the darkness blacker than ink spilling from her. "And your cooking caresses the senses just as gently," Valtor's mellow voice slowly cracked open the door to the shelf on which she'd stored all the praise her culinary skills had received to keep it away from anything rotting or foul smelling. "Plants literally blossom under your touch but everything else also blooms to life in your hands and it's so beautiful," he didn't even pause to look for the word as if it was the most natural conclusion of his statement.

"Beautiful?" Griffin repeated as that was the only thing she could get out through the tears blocking her sight. She was blind like a bat at the moment and needed the sound of his voice to find her way to him through the flood of words from her past dragging her out of his reach to drown her. And her palms were so sweaty she was sure she'd slip from his fingers any second now and tumble into the darkness lying beyond the edge of the bed.

Dream. It had to be a dream. It was the only explanation for the... beautiful feeling in her chest. She trusted him to give it to her but reality would never allow it. So it had to be something her brain had made up to lie to itself like it did so often. It always tricked her into believing her nightmares were fairytales and what little defense she had against the pain crumbled to pieces at the reflection of pleasure her mind twisted itself to create. There were too many slashes on her insides gushing ugly truth for her to be made up of anything else.

"There are other words that come to mind but none of them truly do you justice," Valtor said, making her sniffle in a sight she was sure wasn't pretty. "I saw it from the moment I met you. I just hadn't realized it back when I watched you hold Allison through her nightmare of an experience."

The sobs spilled from her, the exact same that had shaken Allison like a leaf in her arms and had left her clutching at the girl in her despair to keep her out of the coldness of prison and into her warm embrace. That had been selfless as she would've had no self left if she'd failed to protect Allison. It was all about her students and meeting Valtor had proven that. The universe had sent him to her to make sure that her efforts to help her girls–those same efforts she'd doubted countless times in the six years since she'd been made headmistress–hadn't been in vain, that her life hadn't been wasted when she'd dedicated it to them.

Valtor drew her into his hug as if he'd sensed she was ready to receive it now. It was the first time she was glad to shed the tears that finally left her gaze clear for her to see love – from herself and for herself. And breathing was so easy with her mouth against Valtor's skin and his hand pressing hers to her heart to help her feel it beat with the life she could have sworn she'd lost somewhere on the road to the chair of headmistress.


End file.
